Streaming sucks
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Ok, I guess the convenience is nice.
But on Saturday night I asked my xfinity remote to watch "Copland" (movie), it said it was available for Free via Paramount+, ok so I started watching it but didn't finish. The next night I went back to finish it and suddenly it was $3.99 to rent. Luckily I'm incredibly wealthy like @Horace so I just rented it and finished the movie.
Gotta love how quickly movie titles change between streaming providers and cost.
Movie was good. Always wanted to watch it based on the director (James Mangold) and a cast I knew was good, but didn't realize was THAT good:
Sylvester Stallone
Harvey Keitel
Ray Liotta
Robert De Niro
Peter Berg
Janeane Garofalo
Robert Patrick
Michael Rapaport
Noah Emmerich -
I had colleagues that were involved in a very early market study for streaming done by one of the cable companies.
They rolled it out to a set of cable subscribers in the Orlando area I think.
On the back end were scores of VCRs and a big VHS library. You’d select your movies and it would load in a minute or so as an employee scrambled to connect you to a vcr and put the movie in.At the conclusion of the experiment they decided there was no future in it. Their conclusion was that Blockbuster was ‘invisible spending’ - you paid with the dollar bills in your pocket left over from your lunch or coffee. But if you had to pay the bill at the end of the month people would notice how much they were spending on movies and cut back. This is probably why the pioneers were startups like Netflix rather than incumbents.
Different times.
"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."
-Cormac McCarthy -
I had colleagues that were involved in a very early market study for streaming done by one of the cable companies.
They rolled it out to a set of cable subscribers in the Orlando area I think.
On the back end were scores of VCRs and a big VHS library. You’d select your movies and it would load in a minute or so as an employee scrambled to connect you to a vcr and put the movie in.At the conclusion of the experiment they decided there was no future in it. Their conclusion was that Blockbuster was ‘invisible spending’ - you paid with the dollar bills in your pocket left over from your lunch or coffee. But if you had to pay the bill at the end of the month people would notice how much they were spending on movies and cut back. This is probably why the pioneers were startups like Netflix rather than incumbents.
Different times.
@jon-nyc said in Streaming sucks:
At the conclusion of the experiment they decided there was no future in it. Their conclusion was that Blockbuster was ‘invisible spending’ - you paid with the dollar bills in your pocket left over from your lunch or coffee. But if you had to pay the bill at the end of the month people would notice how much they were spending on movies and cut back. This is probably why the pioneers were startups like Netflix rather than incumbents.
I remember as a Freshman in 2000 realizing we could (slowly) download movies via the internet and burn them onto a disc. Darn, there was a name for the movie-specific downloading site, I still have discs somewhere in storage, @Aqua-Letifer would remember the name. ANYWAY, I remember thinking... this could be a good business, to provide movies to watch on your computer over the internet. Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
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Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
Not that easy. Netflix is streaming. So is Napster and Spotify. Very few foresaw that somehow "video streaming" would be so commercially successful but not "music streaming."
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@jon-nyc said in Streaming sucks:
At the conclusion of the experiment they decided there was no future in it. Their conclusion was that Blockbuster was ‘invisible spending’ - you paid with the dollar bills in your pocket left over from your lunch or coffee. But if you had to pay the bill at the end of the month people would notice how much they were spending on movies and cut back. This is probably why the pioneers were startups like Netflix rather than incumbents.
I remember as a Freshman in 2000 realizing we could (slowly) download movies via the internet and burn them onto a disc. Darn, there was a name for the movie-specific downloading site, I still have discs somewhere in storage, @Aqua-Letifer would remember the name. ANYWAY, I remember thinking... this could be a good business, to provide movies to watch on your computer over the internet. Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
@89th said in Streaming sucks:
I remember as a Freshman in 2000 realizing we could (slowly) download movies via the internet and burn them onto a disc. Darn, there was a name for the movie-specific downloading site, I still have discs somewhere in storage, @Aqua-Letifer would remember the name. ANYWAY, I remember thinking... this could be a good business, to provide movies to watch on your computer over the internet. Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
Netflix was founded in 1997. They started mailing discs (I used to subscribe to that) but their vision was always internet delivery.
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Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
Not that easy. Netflix is streaming. So is Napster and Spotify. Very few foresaw that somehow "video streaming" would be so commercially successful but not "music streaming."
@Axtremus said in Streaming sucks:
Had I been 1% smarter, I would've invented/invested in what became Netflix and been rich enough to rent movies throughout the year like Horace.
Not that easy. Netflix is streaming. So is Napster and Spotify. Very few foresaw that somehow "video streaming" would be so commercially successful but not "music streaming."
Interesting. I have been subscribing to Qobuz for music now going on two years. I really like it - CD or HR quality music for $11 CAD a month. That’s about $8 US. Classical and jazz catalogue is phenomenal. Folk and World music as well seem impressive. Rarely am I unable to find a particular recording in any genre in the catalogue. I reckon you get great value for the price.
Can’t comment on movies as we have yet to ever stream one at home.
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I had colleagues that were involved in a very early market study for streaming done by one of the cable companies.
They rolled it out to a set of cable subscribers in the Orlando area I think.
On the back end were scores of VCRs and a big VHS library. You’d select your movies and it would load in a minute or so as an employee scrambled to connect you to a vcr and put the movie in.At the conclusion of the experiment they decided there was no future in it. Their conclusion was that Blockbuster was ‘invisible spending’ - you paid with the dollar bills in your pocket left over from your lunch or coffee. But if you had to pay the bill at the end of the month people would notice how much they were spending on movies and cut back. This is probably why the pioneers were startups like Netflix rather than incumbents.
Different times.
@jon-nyc said in Streaming sucks:
I had colleagues that were involved in a very early market study for streaming done by one of the cable companies.
They rolled it out to a set of cable subscribers in the Orlando area I think.
On the back end were scores of VCRs and a big VHS library. You’d select your movies and it would load in a minute or so as an employee scrambled to connect you to a vcr and put the movie in.I remember maybe back in maybe 2010(?) and flying trans-ocean and seat had a mini VCR and the flight attendants brought around a box with various movie tittles tapes. I thought it was the coolest thing. Movie on demand!!!
